Health Care Reform Policy Blog

Dr. Pisters, Dr. DePinho, This Is My MD Anderson By Leonard Zwelling https://www.medp does as agetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/86818?xid=nl_secondopinion_2020-06-02&eun=g1139137d0r This article by Francois Furstenburg of Johns Hopkins does a pretty good job of describing the plight of academia in 2020. In a word, it’s corporatization. Many university and academic health care systems have been converted into profit-making...

It Must Be 1968 By Leonard Zwelling The country is in turmoil. The cities are burning. A viral contagion has emerged from Asia that threatens to kill millions and the occupant of the White House is besieged. Is this now or 1968? There was the Hong Kong Flu in 1968 that did kill...

An Appallingly Insulting Music Video By Leonard Zwelling They arrived in my email almost simultaneously. The first link was to one of the most appalling ideas I have ever seen, a music video featuring the administrative leadership of MD Anderson dancing and laughing, often without masks. (However one sequence featured masked dancers so...

The Coronavirus Is New. Our Reaction To It Has Been Years In The Making. By Leonard Zwelling There really is little doubt that the coronavirus that has caused so much death and suffering in the world emanated from Wuhan, China towards the end of 2019. Had the Chinese Communist Party and the government of...

Everybody’s Talking. No One Is Listening. By Leonard Zwelling Another week and another town hall at MD Anderson. As usual, the talking heads spoke for more than 50 minutes leaving little time for questions, none of which were spontaneous. It’s a time-honored way of seeming to be inclusionary when in fact being the exact...

The Letter By Leonard Zwelling I got a real letter today. And I don’t mean an email. I mean a real envelope with my name on it with a stamp and everything. It was addressed to my house. Well, almost everything. It had no return address. I have no idea who sent this to...

The Academic Cancer Center By Leonard Zwelling There are many “cancer centers” now. When I was first training in internal medicine there were only four—Memorial Sloan Kettering, Roswell Park, the National Cancer Institute, and MD Anderson. Five if you count St. Jude which was only for children. The term “cancer center” is used...

Is Working From Home Really The Same As Working? It Depends. By Leonard Zwelling Lots of people were already working from home before the coronavirus and its attendant closures threw many more people into the home office pool. By contrast, the work of the front-line caregivers and first responders never drifted from its traditional...

Josh By Leonard Zwelling First name only needed. Everyone knew who you were talking about. He was like Madonna or Cher. No last name required and no name tag. Just Josh. Out of respect he became Dr. Fidler. Sometimes his name was half of a duo. Josh and Margaret. It was clear who you...

Risk By Leonard Zwelling Life is a series of choices. Choices have attendant risks. You can choose not to use your seat belt—in a car or in a airplane, although the flight attendant might toss you off the latter for such an expression of your freedom. You can be ticketed for the former as...